LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 96, 21 September 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ON' BO MID THU DEVASTATION Concluded. After a few more rounds have been fired, a new method of firing the guns is tried—this consists in discharging both or either guns in either turret simultaneously by electricity. To do this, is very simple : the captain or officer who is to fire intimates that their will be electric firing of one, two, or all the guns ; these guns arc loaded, and their vents connected electrically with the wires in the iron building on deck. Either by steering, or by the movement of the turrets, the guns are kept trained on the target,

The officer who is to fire stands watching the distant horizon, and when all is ready, and all clear, he presses down a small connector, and the electric current immediately ignites the tube, and discharges the gun or guns. We had already heard two guns fired quickly, one after the other ; we were now to experience the result of two guns being fired simultaneously. We stood anxiously watching the target, and in an instant there was the same concussion of the deck, the same ‘jumpy’ feeling all over ns, and away went the two shot racing with each other, striking the water, and sending up their splendid fountains, and one shot curving round to the right, the other to the left. There is a peculiarity about these elongated rifled shot, that on striking the water, they usually diverge to the right, and finally drop considerably out of the line of fire. With spherical shot, this was not so much the case, especially in a calm sea, the ricochet being more direct, and the shot performing on the water some dozen hops before it sunk. During the whole of the practide in the Devastation, we never saw more than three ricochets of the shot. After the men’s dinner, the target which had been picked up, was again lowered overboard in readiness for the electric firing, which was to be continued. During these preparations, we have time to pay a visit to the engine-room, which we find tolerably cool and well ventilated ; the engine, again, is unlike the engines one usually sees on board ship, and moves in strange oscillations and curves. We pass on through massesof moving machinery, where we occasionally encounter cools blasts of air from apertures connected by pipes with revolving fans above, till we come to a dark street of some, forty feet long, on either side of which, instead of shop windows there are furnaces, each tearing away at; its ration of coal, and giving out its heat and fl me with a rapacity engendered by the tremendous blast rushing through it. Here we are in the domain of the engineer, the great presiding genius of the ship. Without the engineer and his assistants, the Devastation becomes the veriest hulk in the navy : she cannot sail, for she has but one mast, and no yards or sails, and is, therefore, dependent alone on steam She can, however, rush through the water with tremendous velocity, and on our quiet journey for practice, she moved at above eleven knots per hour, her engines giving fifty-seven revolutions per minute. Such a ship as the Devastation requires as many as seventy stokers, and uses about twenty-four tons of coals per day for a quiet day’s work. If working up to full power all day day, she consumes one hundred and fifty tons of coal per day, and she can work up to five thousand five hundred horse-power. During our visit to the lower regions, a shot is fired from one of the turrets, and makes scarcely any report in the engineroom ; there is a slight jarring felt as the gun is discharged, but not sufficient to indicate that one hundred and ten pounds of powder have been discharged. On ascending orce more to the upper deck, we find preparations are being made for a simultaneous broadside, to he fired by electricity. The shot from the four guns can be concentrated on a very small space, aud can be sent instantaneously on their message of destruction. A ton and a quarter of iron can be thrown in one broadside, and we believe that there is no ship now afloat that could withstand this shock ; so that the Devastation may be considered most appropriately christened. Everything being ready both in the fore and after turret, as we are assured by the report of the officer in the rat-trap, we wait for the touch of the finger which will discharge the four monster guns at the same instant. Down goes the finger of the captain, aud off goes the four guns at the same instant. We are enveloped in smoke, which again prevents us seeing the shot pass the target ; but there is a fresh breeze blowing, and the smoke clearing away rapidly, we see on the water the marks of the four shot, and in the far distance, the descending spray of the last jet of water, that rose majestically in the air as the heavy missiles bounded on their way. One more round, and the day’s firing is over, and this round is to be a trial of grape. The gun is loaded, round spins the turret and bang goes the iron bail, cutting the water into foam, and making the target shake and collapse. Had a boat been where the target was located, she would have been cut to pieces. ‘ Cease firing ’is now sounded, and we look round the turrets, and examine the guns, to see how they look after their performances. Already the marine artillerymen and sailors a r e carefully sponging aud washing out the guns ; whilst inside the turrets, experiments are being made to test the working efficiency of certain hydraulic arrangements for hoisting and lowering the guns in their carriages. We note throughout two most important facts—first, that every officer seems thoroughly well acquainted with every detail of his duty. There is a quiet decision about the words of command, and an absence of all excitement and hurry, that speak to the experienced as indicative of efficiency. Each officers has his station and his special work’ and there we see him doing it well and rapidly. Among the men there is a display of willingness to work, an eagerness to use their utmost exertion, and a readiness to come to the front, which shows their heart is in the work. There seem to be no skulkers on board the Devastation. We were not many yards from this monster vessel when she fired her guns, and struck with her pebble powder a yacht, during the visit of the Shah to the fleet at Spithead ; and we had heard that it was only when firing blank cartridges that the unexploded powder thus acted like grape; so we examine'! the Devastation’s decks in front of her guns to discover marks of the powder that had struck her There was no doubt about the result ; some two or three dozen marks on the deck showed plainly that some missile had impinged on the deck, and had left its rasping mark. Powder alone could have done tills. t 1 • i han an hour from ceasing practice, ip I) va-ration is again at. anchor at Spithead, and lying quietly near her old anchorage ; wlidst we make the nest or our waj on shore, aud ponder over w 1 at we have seen, and what yet remains to he proved in connection wit h this strange monster. She can steam : she can fire ; and all works well ; the (‘fleet produced by her as a ram has yet to be discovered ; and whafshe will do in a heavy sea, is also a problem for the future ; as a coast defence, she is almost perfect; but whether, in a heavy sea, she could fight her turret guns, is a question which is one for proof. Any way, she is a wonderful vessel, ably commanded, admirably officered, aud most efficiently manned.